Inheritance And Development Of Contemporary Guzheng Performance Techniques

Traditional guzheng performance has distinct styles and regional uniqueness.Startingwiththe composition of the contemporary guzheng piece, Qing Feng Nian (Celebration ofHarvest)of 1955, which introduced performances using both hands, the performancetechniques of modern guzheng have undergone 40 years of developments. Among thesedevelopments, there are those inherited from traditional techniques, as well as manyinnovations.Modern guzheng performance has naturally absorbed those traditional techniques. Italso incorporates the performance techniques of other traditional Chinese instruments andwestern music instruments, and combines these with guzheng's own characteristics todevelop various new Chinese-styled and guzheng-styled techniques. Through an analysisof some representative contemporary guzheng performance techniques, this article seeksto summarize those inherited and innovated, and further analyze the various sociological,cultural, subjective and objective factors contributing to the developments of thesetechniques.The transformation of guzheng performance techniques is not accidental. It is theinevitable result of many factors, such as the evolution of social and cultural lives, theinteraction of different cultures, the changes of performing environments and the audience,the diversity of composer groups, as well as the influences of traditional performanceconceptions.